When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st, Nor shall death brag thou wander’st in his shade, Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st, The beloved’s beauty can coexist with summer, and indeed be more pleasant, but it is not a replacement for it.Īnd summer’s lease hath all too short a date:īy chance, or nature’s changing course untrimmed: Although in Sonnet 130, Shakespeare is mocking the over-flowery language, in Sonnet 18, Shakespeare’s simplicity of imagery shows that that is not the case. This also riffs – as Sonnet 130 does – on the romantic poetry of the age, the attempt to compare a beloved to something greater than them. While summer is short and occasionally too hot, his beloved has a beauty that is everlasting, and that will never be uncomfortable to gaze upon. Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer’s Day? attempts to justify the speaker’s beloved’s beauty by comparing it to a summer’s day, and comes to the conclusion that his beloved is better after listing some of the summer’s negative qualities. So long lives this, and this gives life to thee. So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see, When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st, Nor shall death brag thou wander'st in his shade, Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st, Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,Īnd every fair from fair sometime declines,īy chance, or nature's changing course untrimmed: Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,Īnd summer's lease hath all too short a date: A total of 126 of the 154 sonnets are largely taken to be addressed to the Fair Youth, which some scholars have also taken as proof of William Shakespeare’s homosexuality. Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer’s Day? is one of the Fair Youth poems, addressed to a mysterious male figure that scholars have been unable to pin down. Based on the Petrarchan (or Italian) sonnet, Shakespeare’s sonnets differ from the norm by addressing not only a young woman – which was the norm in Italy – but also a young man, known throughout as the Fair Youth. Although William Shakespeare is best known as a playwright, he is also the poet behind 154 sonnets, which were collected for the first time in a collection in 1609.
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